Most reprints of the first story below titled it “Politicians are stifling dissent, critics say.” When the Albuquerque Journal published the following story, they titled it “A Trend Against Dissent?” and cut it in half, eliminating 15 paragraphs, including more specific examples of this trend. One wonders if they didn’t diminish the impact of the story in the process. mjh

Politicians are stifling dissent, critics say By Steven Thomma, Knight Ridder Newspapers

It’s a crime, punishable by up to six months in prison, to “disrupt” an event guarded by the Secret Service, which includes presidential rallies. (A proposed extension of the Patriot Act now being negotiated in Congress would broaden such prohibitions to other vaguely defined national events.)

Does a T-shirt “disrupt” an event? To the political operatives who ejected people on the basis of their shirts – or ordered them arrested – a shirt can be disruptive. …

The Supreme Court ruled in 1971 that it wasn’t illegal to wear an obscene anti-Vietnam war jacket in a California courthouse, despite a state law prohibiting such messages because they might incite violence.

“The state may not, consistently with the First and 14th amendments, make the simple public display of this four-letter expletive a criminal offense,” the court said. …

This trend has a chilling effect on those who disagree with people in power, analysts say.

“The long-term consequence is a higher degree of self-censorship,” O’Neil said. “Society is the poorer when deprived of the marketplace of ideas.”

TRIBUNE COLUMN By TONY MESSENGER

[T]his isn’t a column about the war. It’s not about the president. It’s not about party politics.

This is a column about free speech.

It’s a column about dissent.

It’s a column about the right in America to wear a damn T-shirt. …

During [Gov. Matt] Blunt’s State of the State speech last month in Jefferson City [, Missouri], Capitol police got into the censorship routine on their own. Tim Shaw was one of 11 people forced to either turn their shirts inside out or leave the House gallery.

Shaw is a member of Show Me ADAPT, a disability-rights organization that has been highly critical of Blunt’s Medicaid cuts, particularly those that negatively affected folks with disabilities. …

At Blunt’s speech, Shaw and 10 other members of the group were told they couldn’t watch the governor’s address while wearing their shirts. The reason? Capitol Police Chief Todd Hurt said the shirts were considered lobbying. …

Does either party really want to create a country where no dissent is allowed? A country where all forms of free speech that get in the way of political spin are somehow seen as subversive?

The thought scares Shaw, and he chooses his words carefully.

“It is reminiscent of regimes of power in world history that are not representative of our Constitution,” Shaw says.

President George W. Bush used the word “freedom” 17 times in his speech the other night. He used it more than any other word, and yet I wonder about its place atop the president’s lexicon.

ABQjournal: Bush Visit Lights Up Rio Rancho By Joshua Akers, Journal Staff Writer

The Rio Rancho Department of Public Safety reported one arrest during the event.

DPS spokesman John Francis said Robert Chavez, 56, of Albuquerque, was arrested after failing to obey a police officer.

Francis said Chavez was told to stay on the sidewalk three times. When Chavez stepped around a DPS officer and into the street, he was arrested around 9 a.m.

DPS did not have a crowd count for protesters or supporters outside the event.

I put a protest tarp up on my roof just a few hours before Duhbya got to town. I decided on the classic “BUllSHit,” which I coined for Poppy Bush so many years ago — like father, like son. On the deep blue tarp, I made the “BU” and the “SH” white and the “ll” and the “it” red. Very patriotic, like dissent.

Just my luck that the next 24 hours were the windiest of the year. No amount of bricks will hold a tarp flat on a New Mexican roof in a good stiff wind. But, though it wrinkled a bit, at least it didn’t fly.

Did Duhbya see it? Well, there is no question that a few years ago, his plane flew straight over my house, over my DUMP BUSH and No W tarps. Don’t know about this time.

Reading the anemic coverage about local protests and a blog entry about protests in Nashville, I decided to dust off my own story of protest just over 2 years ago — when I got within 6 feet of the presidential limosine.

Continue reading Speak Up! →

[updated 2/4/06]

The great T-shirt threat

The first

casualty of this effort to make the Capitol safe for the president to expound about totalitarianism elsewhere was Cindy Sheehan, the

California mother of a soldier who was killed in Iraq as part of what Bush would describe as “the call of history to deliver the

oppressed.” Sheehan had the temerity to peel off her coat to reveal a T-shirt that said, “2,245 Dead. How many more?”

Sheehan was

hauled away in handcuffs and charged with unlawful conduct, a misdemeanor. Soon after, sharp-eyed police spotted Beverly Young, wife of a

Florida congressman — sitting near first lady Laura Bush with a T-shirt that said, “Support the Troops — Defending Our Freedom.”

Young was quickly ejected from the gallery. Despite an angry exchange with police — she called an officer “an idiot” for classifying

her T-shirt as “a protest” — she was not arrested. With the gallery cleared of “trouble,” Bush delivered his speech, with a tiny flag

pin on his lapel and the usual giant American flag backdrop.

“Every step toward freedom in the world makes our country

safer — so we will act boldly in freedom’s cause,” said Bush, to robust applause.

Police Apologize to Sheehan, Drop Charge

By LAURIE KELLMAN, The Associated Press

Capitol Police dropped a charge of unlawful conduct against anti-war activist Cindy

Sheehan on Wednesday and apologized for ejecting her and a congressman’s wife from President Bush’s State of the Union address for

wearing T-shirts with war messages.

Cindy Sheehan Released After Arrest for Wearing Shirt By David Swanson

HERE IS CINDY’S OWN REPORT:

As most of you have probably heard, I was arrested before the State of the Union Address tonight.

I am speechless with fury at what happened and with grief over what we have lost in our country.

There have been lies from

the police and distortions by the press. (Shocker) So this is what really happened: …

I was never told that I couldn’t wear

that shirt into the Congress. I was never asked to take it off or zip my jacket back up. If I had been asked to do any of those

things…I would have, and written about the suppression of my freedom of speech later. I was immediately, and roughly (I have the

bruises and muscle spasms to prove it) hauled off and arrested for “unlawful conduct.” …

I wore the shirt to make a statement.

The press knew I was going to be there and I thought every once in awhile they would show me and I would have the shirt on. I did not

wear it to be disruptive, or I would have unzipped my jacket during George’s speech. If I had any idea what happens to people who wear

shirts that make the neocons uncomfortable that I would be arrested…maybe I would have, but I didn’t.

[via guerillawomentn.blogspot.com via Coco]

Alito parts with conservatives on execution By James Vicini

New U.S. Supreme Court Justice

Samuel Alito disagreed with the court’s conservatives and refused to allow Missouri to execute a man convicted of

kidnapping and killing a Kansas City teenager 17 years ago.

Alito sided with the majority in a 6-3 vote that

rejected a last minute request to allow Missouri to carry out the execution of Michael Taylor, 39, by lethal injection at midnight, a

court spokesman said on Thursday.

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas voted to let the

execution proceed.